Hey girl I sat next to in a few classes in college 4 years ago and then never spoke to again,
The reason that I am so vocal about this election is because I cannot believe that a candidate as qualified for the role of presidency as Hillary Clinton is, has been struggling to win the job against this other candidate. This other candidate who is, literally, an openly racist, homophobic sexual predator who has bragged about using tax loopholes to evade paying federal taxes, invited our foreign enemies to hack into the information technology of the American government/people and refuses to agree to accept the results of the election, fundamentally corrupting the democratic process that is the foundation of this country. This is almost what we would consider treason. Not to mention the fact that he has zero political experience, and a business resume that you couldn't land an internship with. The man has an unending list of horrible and offensive actions/words/business practices/etc. against him and Hillary is still defending her emails!
The FBI, who a republican representative says conducted the investigation with complete neutrality, concluded that while Hillary and her team had been "careless" with their emails, they had no intention of putting America at risk. You see, because the internet is relatively new, laws about email confidentiality and national security are still evolving. The government is still learning how to handle these things, which is reasonable considering the fact that each new technology comes with changes in law and of course there will be a learning curve. No one could be expected to do a new thing right the very first time.
Anyway, the point is that during these periods, the government uses precedents to help decide how to react to things. In the case of Hillary's emails, the FBI acted partly based on a precedent, stating 'this is how issues like this have been handled in the past'. Okay, end of story, right? The judicial system is supposed to be responsible for handling situations like these. They obviously do their due diligence and take these situations seriously. But no, this is an issue that average citizens, like Donald Trump, continue to believe they understand and know more 'truth' about than the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The branches of government can only work if they work together. You cannot have the head of the Executive Branch distrust the Judicial Branch, it simply cannot work.
So while Hillary continues to receive criticism for an issue that has been long resolved by the highest judiciary authority we have in this country, we have actual VIDEO EVIDENCE of Donald bragging about committing acts of sexual assault surface and people continue to say that he is not a sexual predator? This is without considering the fact that no less than 9 women have come forward verifying the claims he, himself made about his own behavior in 2005, at age 59. We know that victims of sexual assault struggle to come forward about their experiences as a result of the negative responses they have been known to receive. So it is no surprise that these women only feel secure to come out about their experiences, because Donald has admitted to them himself. Whether he committed these acts or not (he did) no decent human being should speak this way. No decent human, and certainly no President of the United States. When Bill Clinton was president, he was impeached as a result of a consensual sexual relationship he had. His infidelity, by the way, is still cited to this day, as a negative characteristic of Hillary's. The point here is that Bill received incredible backlash for this scandal, however his criticizers are now silent in the face of Donald's non-consensual affairs (sexual assaults).
I'm not saying that Hillary hasn't made any mistakes during her career, but how could we expect anyone to make ZERO mistakes? We are all human. However, her mistakes are few and she has explained and/or apologized for most/if not all of them. On the other hand, for every mistake Donald makes, and even as they increase in severity, people will continue to make excuses for him. There is nothing they will not explain away with slanted and hateful language. Even more ludicrous is the levity with which we treat her successes. She has made countless positive changes in this country over the past 30 years. She has done her damnedest to do right by the American people for all these years. At at the same time, you hear people praising Donald for things like 'saying it like it is'. Because the only positive attribute they can think of is that he says the most horrible, rude things that the human psyche can think of? Okay, it that's all you got, I guess I see why you have to praise the shit out of it. But you must at least use the same scale to measure their successes and failures. According to several news outlets, during the debates, Hillary's expectations were something like 'convince the American people you will be the best president', Donald's were to 'not lie'. Are we serious?
The reason this is happening became so clear tonight when Donald referred to Hillary as a 'nasty woman' during a presidential debate on live television. While many Hillary supporters are turning this into a slogan, and on some level I applaud them, we cannot forget the weight of these words. What Donald did there was remind the American people that Hillary is just another one of those 'nasty women' who refuse to dance with you at the party. You know, those women who don't deserve the right to body autonomy? Who don't deserve the same rights as men, all the way down to the ability to make choices about their own bodies, including who, and in what capacity, can touch it. You know, those women you can rape the unconscious body of behind a dumpster and serve less jail time than if you'd gotten a traffic violation? The ones who don't deserve the right to make choices about if and when they want to grow a human life inside of them. I know it's hard for some of you(men) to understand the weight of growing a human life inside of you. This is no one's fault. But we alone can understand. It is not a choice we can make lightly, but it is a choice that is ours, and only ours, who can experience this, to make choices about. Men making legislation about women's issues is how we have tampons taxed as luxury items and erectile dysfunction medication government subsidized. Men making legislation about women's issues is how we have Donald on stage threatening to repeal Roe v. Wade. This is how we have his supporters tweeting about repealing the 19th amendment.
What Donald did there was remind you that Hillary is a woman, and for that reason she is not as qualified as he, a man, is. This belief is the reason it has taken 227 years, 56 elections, 44 presidents and 89 presidential candidates for us to get to even a female candidate. This is how this series of events has happened despite having a statistical probability of 1 in 8 million if the chances of a male or female were 50/50.
Here in America, while many people have helped make strides towards and supported true gender equality, many continue to hold us back. Many continue, intuitively maybe, to fail to pay the same respect to women as they do to men. These are typically the same people that fail to respect those of different races, origins, life courses, gender expressions, sexualities, etc. The contingency of people who do this in our country, which constitutes a frightening number, currently consider themselves Trump supporters. To be a Trump support is to explain away Donald's hateful rhetoric, it is to excuse beliefs that disenfranchise entire groups of people. This is fundamentally wrong, no matter your religion or political beliefs. Humans are humans are humans. Everyone deserves equal respect, end of fucking story. The second you have a candidate proclaim that they do not respect a certain group of people (based on any 'distinction', such as gender) is the second that all of their other qualities cease to matter. No matter what Donald's plans are (he has none), no matter how closely his policies align with your beliefs (they shouldn't), and no matter how well you think he may run the country (he will burn it down), none of that shit matters! Because he has already proven himself unworthy to be president by exhibiting that he will not care for specific groups of people in this country. Beliefs like his are those that lead to tragedies like mass shootings, bombings and other forms of terrorism. In the most extreme cases, genocide. His type of rhetoric and his hateful beliefs are those that lead to these types actions, we know this.
We, as a human race, have failed to evolve past this fear of outsiders, an ancient survival mechanism used in the beginning of the human race. We once had to fear others as a survival mechanism, when resources were scarce and it was life or death. But even now that we have all of the resources we could ever need, collectively across the Earth, we continue to fight with each other based on fear. And clearly, we even do this within our own country. Similar to how Donald Trump fears Hillary, the person who has finally confronted him with the fact that he is not as qualified for this job as he thought he was. The person who is finally showing him, after a lifetime of cheating, stealing and wasting away money and then being bailed out by other people, that he is NOT as fantastic as he thinks he is. After years of taking advantage of and bullying women, a woman is now running against him for president and forcing him to face his failures once and for all. This is why we hear Donald referring to Hillary as "nasty","crooked" and "not nice", despite the fact that she is more frequently found to be telling the truth (hers and his records).
What Hillary is doing for Donald is what women have to do every single day when they stand up for their rights. Every single time a woman walks a little faster down the street or guards her drink at a party or clutches a pepper spray in her pocket, she is facing the real and actual threat that his type of hateful language breeds. Every single time a woman speaks up about office harassment, or sexual assault, or sexist policies, she is standing where Hillary stands. She is forced to not only champion her far superior and more extensive list of qualifications, but also to stand poised and respond professionally to an opponent who uses emotional abuse tactics to manipulate and threaten. She is forced to bite back the "fuck off, i am done with your shit" that we have all felt, and instead smile and laugh, lest she be termed "too cold".
So, girl on my twitter feed, I know you're not a "feminist" because you think it sounds nice to be a stay at home mom, and I get that. I really do. You have every right to want to spend your life that way, seriously. Feminism is all about giving women equal opportunities and the ability to make her own choices, I'm sorry anyone made you feel otherwise. And that's why I won't stop posting about this election. Because there are still people, who use insipid reasons to discredit Hillary as a candidate because she is a woman. Because for the first time in American history we have a female candidate. Because for the first time in American history we have a female candidate and she happens to be one of the most qualified candidates in history. Because, despite this, she may lose? To a trio of cranky, three-year-olds piled up under a suit, crying about how they are gonna lose game because their opponent is, 'definitely cheating, mom!!'? That is something that I cannot let happen. Because if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Share This Article
